Stakes are big in Russia-China gas supply talks

Supplying China could be the great prize for future natural gas exporters, including a possible multibillion-dollar LNG project that would liquefy and export Alaska’s North Slope gas.

But an irony of the global gas trade is that Russia – which has enormous but stranded gas reserves in its Far East – is not piping any of it across its southeastern border to the Chinese economic colossus that is thirsting for gas.

The two countries have been in gas-supply talks for 20 years, but a Great Wall separates them: They have been unable to agree on a fair price.